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progress the English have made in two centuries, in forgetting the very names of objects
which had been the sources of terror to their ancestors of the Elizabethan age.
Before leaving the subject of fairy superstition in England we may remark that it was of a
more playful and gentle, less wild and necromantic character, than that received among the
sister people. The amusements of the southern fairies were light and sportive; their resent-
ments were satisfied with pinching or scratching the objects of their displeasure; their peculiar
sense of cleanliness rewarded the housewives with the silver token in the shoe; their nicety
was extreme concerning any coarseness or negligence which could offend their delicacy; and
I cannot discern, except, perhaps, from the insinuations of some scrupulous divines, that they
were vassals to or in close alliance with the infernals, as there is too much reason to believe
was the case with their North British sisterhood. The common nursery story cannot be forgot-
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ten, how, shortly after the death of what is called a nice tidy housewife, the Elfin band was
shocked to see that a person of different character, with whom the widower had filled his
deserted arms, instead of the nicely arranged little loaf of the whitest bread, and a basin of
sweet cream, duly placed for their refreshment by the deceased, had substituted a brown loaf
and a cobb of herrings. Incensed at such a coarse regale, the elves dragged the peccant
housewife out of bed, and pulled her down the wooden stairs by the heels, repeating, at the
same time, in scorn of her churlish hospitality
Brown bread and herring cobb!
Thy fat sides shall have many a bob!
But beyond such playful malice they had no desire to extend their resentment.
The constant attendant upon the English Fairy court was the celebrated Puck, or Robin
Goodfellow, who to the elves acted in some measure as the jester or clown of the company
(a character then to be found in the establishment of every person of quality) or to use a
more modern comparison, resembled the Pierrot of the pantomime. His jests were of the
most simple and at the same time the broadest comic character to mislead a clown on his
path homeward, to disguise himself like a stool, in order to induce an old gossip to commit
the egregious mistake of sitting down on the floor when she expected to repose on a chair,
were his special enjoyments. If he condescended to do some work for the sleeping family, in
which he had some resemblance to the Scottish household spirit called a Brownie, the selfish
Puck was far from practising this labour on the disinterested principle of the northern goblin,
who, if raiment or food was left in his way and for his use, departed from the family in dis-
pleasure. Robin Goodfellow, on the contrary, must have both his food and his rest, as Milton
informs us, amid his other notices of country superstitions, in the poem of L Allegro. And it is
to be noticed that he represents these tales of the fairies, told round the cottage hearth, as of
a cheerful rather than a serious cast; which illustrates what I have said concerning the milder
character of the southern superstitions, as compared with those of the same class in
Scotland the stories of which are for the most part of a frightful and not seldom of a disgust-
ing quality.
Poor Robin, however, between whom and King Oberon Shakespeare contrives to keep a
degree of distinct subordination, which for a moment deceives us by its appearance of reality,
notwithstanding his turn for wit and humour, had been obscured by oblivion even in the days
of Queen Bess.
We have already seen, in a passage quoted from Reginald Scot, that the belief was fallen
into abeyance; that which follows from the same author affirms more positively that Robin s
date was over:
Know ye this, by the way, that heretofore Robin Goodfellow and Hobgoblin were as terrible,
and also as credible, to the people as hags and witches be now; and in time to come a witch
will be as much derided and condemned, and as clearly perceived, as the illusion and knav-
ery of Robin Goodfellow, upon whom there have gone as many and as credible tales as
witchcraft, saving that it hath not pleased the translators of the Bible to call spirits by the
name of Robin Goodfellow, as they have diviners, soothsayers, poisoners, and cozeners by
the name of witches.
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In the same tone Reginald Scot addresses the reader in the preface:
To make a solemn suit to you that are partial readers to set aside partiality, to take in good
part my writings, and with indifferent eyes to look upon my book, were labour lost and time ill-
employed; for I should no more prevail herein than if, a hundred years since, I should have
entreated your predecessors to believe that Robin Goodfellow, that great and ancient bull-
beggar, had been but a cozening merchant, and no devil indeed. But Robin Goodfellow
ceaseth now to be much feared, and Popery is sufficiently discovered; nevertheless, witches
charms and conjurers cozenage are yet effectual. This passage seems clearly to prove that
the belief in Robin Goodfellow and his fairy companions was now out of date; while that as to
.
witchcraft, as was afterwards but too well shown, kept its ground against argument and con-
troversy, and survived to shed more blood.
We are then to take leave of this fascinating article of the popular creed, having in it so much
of interest to the imagination that we almost envy the credulity of those who, in the gentle
moonlight of a summer night in England, amid the tangled glades of a deep forest, or the turfy
swell of her romantic commons, could fancy they saw the fairies tracing their sportive ring.
But it is in vain to regret illusions which, however engaging, must of necessity yield their place
before the increase of knowledge, like shadows at the advance of morn. These superstitions
have already survived their best and most useful purpose, having been embalmed in the
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